Mozart's Sketches

Eighteenth Century Music, 2016

ABSTRACTWhen Beethoven praised Mozart'sDie Zauberflöte, he emphasized the multitude of musical styles and genres to be found in the opera, ranging from folk tunes to arias to hymn-like textures. The most extraordinary stylistic and generic allusions occur during the ‘Song of the Armoured Men’ in Act 2. This movement owes its extraordinary character to a ‘baroque’ accompaniment and a Lutheran-hymn quotation, the source and meaning of which continue to be discussed in Mozart research. While scholars have often suggested that Mozart took the hymn melody from Johann Philipp Kirnberger'sDie Kunst des reinen Satzes in der Musik(where it is quoted without its text), Reinhold Hammerstein argues that because the composer also appears to have known the hymn's text, he must have encountered the melody elsewhere. This article, based on a study of Mozart's sketches forDie Zauberflöteand a close reading of Kirnberger's writings, supports the thesis that Mozart borrowed the hym...

Journal of the American Musicological Society, 1978

All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions ' Hermann Abert, W. A. Mozart, 6th ed. (Leipzig, I923), I, p. 988 n. 7The sole exception to this statement is item Io09. Mozart was planning a trip to England in 1786 and again in I790.

1958

While there is a robust literature about the aspects of Mozart's aesthetic and creative process which one readily associates with his oeuvre--clarity of form, proportion, and nuanced expression--there is a much lesser known aspect of his life and artistic personality: his delight in pastimes, games, and nonsense writing. These are examined here, relating this aspect of Mozart's creativity to his development as a composer.

2017